Indian Police Detain Four

By Unni Krishnan and Shikhar Balwani -
Oct 28, 2013

Police in the eastern Indian state
of Bihar detained at least two suspects in connection with bomb
blasts at a campaign rally of opposition prime minister
candidate Narendra Modi yesterday that killed five people.

The explosions, including one at a train station, also
injured 71 people, S.K. Bhardwaj, additional director general of
Bihar Police, said by phone. One person confessed to planning
the attack, CNN-IBN television channel reported today, citing
Manu Maharaj, senior superintendent of police in Patna, the
capital of the state where the rally took place.

The blasts “were shocking and can rattle any person,”
Modi, who pressed ahead with the rally, said in comments posted
on his Twitter Inc. account yesterday. “I salute the people of
Bihar for their patience and bravery.”

The blasts in Bihar mark the deadliest incident since the
opposition Bharatiya Janata Party named Modi as its candidate
for prime minister last month. He’s looking to unseat the
government of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who has ruled the
country of 1.2 billion people since 2004.

The federal government has sent probe teams as it awaits a
report from local authorities, Junior Home Minister R.P.N. Singh
told reporters in New Delhi yesterday.

Ties Severed

Modi, the chief minister of Gujarat, is campaigning before
polls that must be held by May to elect representatives to the
545-member lower house of parliament. Janata Dal (United), BJP’s
former ally that governs Bihar, left the opposition alliance in
June over its aversion to Modi’s growing clout in national
politics.

The BJP had arranged 14 special trains and several buses to
bring party workers from different parts of the country to
participate in the rally, CNN-IBN reported, while the Press
Trust of India said the blasts occurred after they had reached
the city.

“There have been injuries and we are busy making
arrangements,” Jayant Kant, the city’s Superintendent of Police,
said by phone, declining to answer further questions.

Singh, in comments posted on his Twitter account, appealed
for calm and peace after the bomb explosions. Home Secretary
Anil Goswami didn’t answer calls to his cell phone.

Two people were injured after nine low-intensity bombs
shook the vicinity of the Mahabodhi temple complex in Bodh Gaya
in July in Bihar, where Buddha is believed to have attained
enlightenment. Three live bombs were defused outside the shrine.

In April, 16 people were injured when a device attached to
a motorcycle exploded near the BJP office in the southern city
of Bangalore.

Cult Figure

Modi arouses strong emotions in the nation of 1.2 billion
people. To followers, he’s a cult figure who dragged Gujarat
from the ashes of the 2002 rioting, wooing businesses and
cutting red tape and corruption. To opponents, he’s an autocrat
who failed to control the attacks on Muslims by Hindu mobs or
show enough remorse over the killings.

Modi has denied any wrongdoing and a Supreme Court-appointed panel investigating one documented incident found no
evidence that he took decisions to prevent assistance from
reaching those being attacked.

India in August this year arrested Yasin Bhatkal, the co-founder of militant group Indian Mujahedeen that claimed
responsibility for deadly bombings across the country. His group
claimed it orchestrated a February attack that killed 16 people
in Hyderabad and a 2011 bombing at New Delhi’s high court that
left 15 people dead.

Loose Network

The Indian Mujahedeen emerged in 2008 as a loose network of
Islamic militants. The group was responsible for attacks that
killed at least 150 people in 2008 alone, according to the study
by the New Delhi-based Institute for Defense Studies and
Analyses.

The group has links with Pakistan, including guerrilla
groups such as Lashkar-e-Taiba, according to the U.S. State
Department. India alleges Lashkar-e-Taiba carried out the
November 2008 attack in Mumbai.

The South Asian country has also been a target of attacks
by Maoist rebels who operate in resource-rich states and say
they are fighting for the rights of exploited poor villagers and
tribal communities. Senior members of Singh’s ruling Congress
party were among the 27 killed in an ambush by the insurgents in
May.

India had been targeted at least 11 times by terrorists
since November 2008, when the government pledged to improve
policing and intelligence gathering after Pakistani gunmen
killed 166 people during a three-day siege of Mumbai, the
country’s financial center.